


Discard, Then Draw

by Idamdra



Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga
Genre: Alcohol, Gen, Language, Slice of Life, alcohol consumption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-29 02:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12621212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idamdra/pseuds/Idamdra
Summary: Sometimes the Lokapala has leisure time; sometimes they spend it together. Quite an assortment of games had found their way underground into the Lokapala’s meeting room, and yet the deck of cards was Adil’s choice, despite not really knowing where to go with it. Roland suggests to play Gin Rummy.





	Discard, Then Draw

Fred and his friends must have been scavenging through some old buildings at night when they knew they were not supposed to be. Either that or they had upturned some of the Mad Mart’s more unsorted stock of playful knickknacks Kathy kept around in the back to prevent the kids from getting into such mischief. No one really fancied the fact that their priority was to stock firearms and ammunition; so storing more “normal” luxuries for leisure was hers and Johnny’s effort to balance it. They did it to sustain a sense of their old lives, like a reminder of something better. It the same reason Kathy planted flowers on the surface during the night just to have them wither a day or two after. If it was the later instance, Roland and Adil both figured she would have been around to collect her missing things eventually. There was not much of a need for a bunch of board games in the Lokapala’s meeting room anyway.

            The weather-beaten boxes were clustered around a corner of the base of the table in the middle of the room. Even both a Cribbage and a Mancala board were tossed into the mix, although they seemed to have been missing pieces. Roland wondered if Fred and his friends even knew how to play either of those games. He only remembered how to play in bits and pieces himself. Adil wondered if Fred and his friends had welcomed themselves to use the meeting room as a place to play the games. He did not really like the idea of the kids socializing in there, not with the computers, files, documentation—all the important tech and information they could not afford to lose—and not with all the liquor in there either.

            While trying to neaten the pile, Adil picked up a beat-up deck of playing cards. He held it in his hand for a moment, thinking how the three of them—Greg, Roland, and himself—used to gather on weekends sometimes and play a few games over drinks. Those days were a long time ago—years.

            “Want to play a round?” Adil asked flashing the pack in Roland’s direction.

            “Alright,” Roland replied, making his way to sit down at the singular chair, “what would you like to play?”

            Adil took a moment to think while moving over to sit on Roland’s right at the far end of the couch, which was really just three adjacent chairs flush to one another, and overhand shuffled for some time there. When nothing in particular had come to mind, he thinned his lips and leveled his entire expression. Their weekend games must have been longer past than he thought because it was troublesome thinking of any games in general let alone games well suited for two, but he needed a response regardless. Adil could not answer Roland with “I don’t know” or “I don’t care.” Those replies reminded him too much of a couple being indecisive about where to go for a dinner date.

           “Uh… There’s Ratscrew,” Adil said. Roland had not responded much, realizing the suggestion was not a set idea once Adil continued listing names of games to play. It must have been under guidelines of speak-up-when-something-sounded-appealing, because Roland remained silent.

           “Crazy Eights, Speed or Spit, or whatever you call it.”

           And still, Roland remained silent.

           “Pasoor.”

           And still, Roland continued to remain silent.

           “… Go Fish…”

           And even still, Roland continued to remain silent, not showing any signs of being any more prone to answering than he was in the beginning.

           “… Frustration?” Adil said, finishing off the list, trying not to apply pressure on his teeth.

           “How about Gin?” Roland suggested.

           “Thought you were a whiskey guy?” The retort was in spirit of their bygone games, but Adil almost immediately regretted saying such, concerned over sacrificing sensibility for tacky wit. Maybe some other time during the past it would have gotten a good laugh out of them, but now it had a bad aftertaste. Roland still seemed to be a good sport over it saying: “Ha. Yeah, you’re right.”

           Except all of his words came out rather arid.

           “But, I’m not much of a fan for poker,” Roland continued, flat faced.

           Out of all the possible responses Roland could have replied, that last part was not one Adil foresaw. His confusion must have translated into his expression, because Roland felt the need to resume the thought for a bit of clarification while their hands were being dealt, seven cards apiece.

           “Whiskey Poker: it was popular around the turn of the twentieth century, but that’s about as much as I know about it.”

           Adil had never heard of the variant, and for shorter than a second, wondered how Roland even knew of the game. He was more focused on the mixture of upset yet relieved he was feeling; upset over wanting to be the clever one for once, relieved that nothing had gone wrong—yet. Roland was still talking.

           “That and—”

           Roland placed his hands on his thighs as if applying pressure helped with raising himself from sitting, then made his way over to the dresser topped with all his liquor bottles. Two Old Fashioned glasses wound up in one hand, clanking when clamped together, and a bottle of Jameson in the other.

           “—they were played over drinks. It’s how they got their names.”

           Roland placed and poured a glass for Adil and a glass for himself, and downed the drink afterwards. Adil did not touch his tumbler.

           Adil only had himself to blame for the poor hand dealt to him, not even a single pair or run to gain direction from. It had only gone five turns into the game for Roland to call “Gin.” Roland had not had that much to drink yet for it to have been a perception err, but Adil did not believe the call anyway. Roland fanned his hand, revealing melds of a three of a kind set and a run from the nine to the queen of clubs. A handful of games went on in a similar fashion, with more pours of liquor alongside them; Roland drinking each readily afterward. Towards the end, he had mistaken the ten of diamonds for that of the ten of hearts one game, and ended up with an extra eighth card in his hand during another.

           “Roland, you have to discard,” Adil had insisted, but Roland was adamant.

            “I already did. Are you trying to cheat, Adil?”

           “You have eight cards in your hand!”

           “That’s because you put down a draw two,” Roland said, waving his finger at the two of hearts on top of the discard pile.

           “Roland… we’re playing Gin Rummy.”

           Roland stroked at his chin with his forefinger in though as if to say, “hmm, I see,” and placed down a card on the discard stack—to just pick up another card from the deck in its place. Adil did not even have the time to exhaust a groan before Roland had exclaimed “Gin!” aptly afterwards. That time for sure Roland had to have been lying about the call, but when Adil crept around to look, his hand was two sets of four of a kind.

           Flustered, Adil suggested a change in games, saying: “Ever heard of Karma?”

           That caught Roland’s attention, probably for all the wrong reasons.

           “What goes around comes around?”

           He was not off the general mark, but it was not quite what Adil meant.

           “No, Shithead.”

           It was another word combination Adil almost instantly regretted, given Roland’s taken aback expression. The slight irritation must not have helped his tone either. Although in Adil’s defense, that title was the common name for the game.

           “Shit, no… ugh, fuck,” Adil stumbled around his words, “the game where you start with three cards faced down. You can’t look at them. Then three more get placed on top of those, face up. The goal is to get rid of all your cards.”

           “I’ve never played anything like that before.”—And yet he knew about an outdated form of poker.

           Writing—Adil figured Roland knew about Whiskey Poker from some sort of studying he had done for a novel or some other piece of fiction he meant to compose at one point or another. It never ceased to amaze Adil what nonsensical knowledge Roland had acquired over writer’s research; not that the realization mattered now or at all.

           “If you two are looking for a game, how about a go of BS?” That suggestion came from Johnny, who had walked into the room hoping to retrieve a few forgotten items. The tower of board games piled at the tableside caught his attention, and he smiled at the sight, delighted to see the games approximately in the same spot where he had left them. He had collected the assortment on the surface the night before, planning to give them to the kids, but dropped them off there because he did not want to deal with the extra hassle while reconvening with the mechanics at the Cable over something or other. They were forgotten about on the return trip.

           Instead of sitting on the couch or the loveseat, Johnny had pulled over a crate, and sat to Roland’s left. Adil dealt the deck into three even piles. The game after he dealt it into four. The game after then he dealt it into five, then six. It was long after any rounds of whiskey were poured, but none of them really need it. After more members of the Lokapala had welcomed themselves in, two different dealings were all it took to stir a rowdy round of merrymaking from the group.

           Kathy had come in search of her husband, worried because he had not come back hours after he said he would, but she started to think she was going to get herself into a bit more than she bargained for if she entered the meeting room to her left side. The Lokapala’s outbursts had grown loud enough to be heard from the lobby outside, rousing up every once in a while, even if they were muffled and droned.

           “That’s Bullshit!”—Kathy was able to distinguish it as Adil’s voice for certain.

           She had opened the door to have found Adil had leapt from his seat, exclaiming something about how they had put two sevens down last go around and that he still had one in his hand; that there was no way Johnny could have put down two sevens. It was not the correct count of cards.

           “Listen up, the count might not be correct, but that doesn’t mean you’re set to call bologna after,” Johnny said as he flipped over the top two cards of the pile, “The bluff must’ve been the last go around by someone else. Got it?”

           The seven of spades and the seven of clubs sat on top of the mound.

           One of the men whistled out a sharp diminuendo. Another mumbled about having passed off a three and a six as two sevens. Adil slumped back down into his seat, dejected, and was handed a handful of cards from Johnny. Roland let out a hearty laugh over the whole affair.

           Hearing him laugh was enough of a reward for Adil in exchange for the stack of cards; hearing him laugh was enough of a reward that he could not help but chuckle along too. Maybe if there ever were a next time, they voiced to each other, the Lokapala would play a different game from the stack—or perhaps not. Roland and Adil joked that they needed to keep the Lokapala together, not tear them apart.


End file.
